Liberating Investment in the Food and Farm Ecosystem (LIFE) is a resource mobilization vehicle founded by a collaborative of critical food and land justice organizations representing and directly accountable to frontline voices across the U.S. Our communities are directly impacted by polluting agricultural industry, intensifying weather, land grabs and forced displacement, water scarcity, economic divestment, and food apartheid.  We are also closest to the solutions that are healing the planet while rebuilding localized food systems in our favor.  

Our focus is on advancing food and agricultural justice, organizing our people, building critical systems while also transforming philanthropic practices that threaten to hinder our progress towards driving real solutions in our communities. We see a better way to reclaim and move resources–rooted in deep relationships, rooted in the dignity and respect for the brilliance of our people and rooted in the promise of visionary work together for climate resilient, sustainable solutions. We see a better way ultimately shifting power, decision making and governance around resources back to where they belong–to front line solutionaries.

LIFE’s organizational heartbeat has been sustained by representatives from local, regional and national organizations including AgriCultura Network, Brooklyn Movement Center, Castanea Fellowship,  HEAL Food Alliance, National Black Food and Justice Alliance, La Semilla, Manzanita Capital, Minnow, Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, Operation Spring Plant, RAFI- USA, and Soul Fire Farm. Members represented from these formations include a broad range of diversity, backgrounds, geographies and reach with centuries of experience in the field all together. 

To date, we have had tremendous success harnessing the power of our collective relationships as we lean into our strength as a community controlled redistribution entity.  This means, LIFE members are driving every stage of the resource redistribution process, from determining grant size and funding availability, to nominating organizations across the food system to apply, to making decisions on funding allocation. This ensures that funds are allocated in a way that reflects the priorities and needs of the communities to whom we are accountable. We prioritize initiatives and organizations led by people of the global majority that align with our values of collective power, sustainability and community based self-determination within our food system.

Together, the LIFE member organizational footprint reaches over 4 million rural and urban farmers, fishers, farm and food chain workers, indigenous groups, community cooperatives, advocates, and wealth redistribution organizers all working to cultivate a healthy and just food system. Put simply, LIFE members are not only representative of the types of individuals and organizations that food system funders should deeply invest in, but LIFE’s success in moving resources is rooted in robust community relationships. LIFE members drive the decision making around where resources are returned back to the frontline solutionary organizations leading the movement towards ecological sustainability, climate resilience and community based healing food systems all rooted in our collective radical aims towards liberation.  

There are several ways to get involved with LIFE. You can sign up for our mailing list to stay updated on our work, follow us on social media to engage in discussions and share our content, and consider making a donation to support our initiatives. We also encourage you to explore opportunities to participate in our upcoming community events, and join our campaigns to advance food and agricultural justice.

If you are in an organization in the food and farm ecosystem leading solutionary work, please consider becoming a member of the formations in our membership including HEAL Food Alliance, National Black Food and Justice Alliance and Northeast Farmers of Color Network Land Trust, if you are not already.  

If you are interested in working with LIFE directly, it is important you understand LIFE’s values (see below) in addition to being deeply collaborative, have capacity and a deep commitment to principled engagement with this work.  Having a strong infrastructure led by trusted, dedicated representatives from organizations committed to the wellbeing of the broader food and farm ecosystem is important to building and maintaining the integrity of  a resource sharing vehicle such as LIFE. 

If you are with an organization or formation working towards food sovereignty in the food and farm ecosystem and are:
‍
-Committed to collaboration, community and ecological care, collective power, ecological sustainability, resilience, racial justice and community self-determination with a demonstrated value of relationships
-Believe deeply in and are committed to shifting resources and decision making back to the frontlines
-Invested in contributing to an organized frontline working together to shift power in philanthropy and back to the rightful place of organized communities Follow our work, get involved and keep in touch with us.

To stay informed about LIFE's initiatives, you can subscribe to our newsletter, where we share updates on our programs, grant opportunities, events, and community spotlights. Additionally, you can follow us on social media, where we encourage you to engage with our content, share your insights, and join us in our mission to create a more just and sustainable food and farm ecosystem.